40 DAYS AND NIGHTS

After a smooth handover at KEA’s hire depot close to Auckland Airport, we now had our home-from-home for the next 40days and headed straight to the nearby Countdown supermarket.  With the fridge and larder stocked up, we set the satnav for our first camp site and joined the heavy traffic to crawl through Auckland city centre.

We caught a glimpse of the iconic Sky Tower as we passed close by, but piloting the evening rush in an unfamiliar vehicle demanded full concentration so no chance to gaze on this occasion; we will come back here later.

We soon began to make better progress on Auckland’s Northern Motorway and then onwards by the delightfully named Hibiscus Coast Highway.  It was not long before the beach at Orewa came into view as we dropped down the perimeter hills towards the town.  The extreme acrobatics of the kite surfers and the heavy white surf were strong indicators of the tropical storm that was in full swing.  

The Top 10 site at Orewa is in a fantastic beach front location but the downside of being on the beach front is that there is no shelter from tropical storms!  For some families, their summer holidays under canvas were brought to an abrupt end as they decided to pack the tent and head off rather than ride the storm.

Whilst the 100km/hour winds and heavy rain threatened a sleepless first night, our earplugs enabled us both to sleep soundly through the storm.  Hopefully it won't continue to rain for the full 40 days and nights else we will need to swap our motorhome for an ark.  Fortunately we woke to a much calmer and brighter outlook as we left camp to head further north and into the Northland district.